Norwegian ship to search for MH370

A Norwegian ship will be used in a new search to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board.

Malaysia’s government has approved the new attempt, to be led by an American company, Ocean Infinity, which has rented the Norwegian supply vessel Seabed Constructor from Bergen-headquartered firm Swire Seabed.

The vessel is in the exploration area in the Indian Ocean already, having been based there before the contract was concluded and the project approved. It is equipped with six Norwegian-built unmanned subsea vessels to be used in the exploration.

Pay on recovery
The agreement with the Malaysian government includes Ocean Infinity not being paid unless the aircraft is found.

“I don’t want to give the relatives too much hope,” said Malaysia’s transport minister, Liow Tiong Lai. “They are willing to search the area of 25,000 square kilometres pointed out by the expert group near the Australian waters.”

Only minor parts of the aircraft wreckage have so far been found. The authorities in Malaysia, China and Australia decided to stop the search for the aircraft a year ago following a hunt lasting 1,046 days.

MH370 conspiracy theories continue to circulate, such as it being shot down during a joint military exercise between the US and Thailand, or that it was hijacked for a spectacular terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11, or that it was destroyed by some kind of new weapon capable of plucking planes out of the sky. But the truth is likely to have been rather less colourful, such as a carefully planned suicide or revenge attack.